A shorter working week
Since its election, the Howard government has repeatedly claimed job creation as its first priority (just in case anyone got confused by cuts to labour market programs, mass lay-offs in the public service and its "cross your fingers and wait for growth" strategy). Meanwhile, unemployment has increased.
Despite blustering about "tackling" unemployment, the major parties are more a part of the problem than the solution. But now the ALP has begun 1997 with the call for a "new" solution: a shorter working week.
Workers fought for and won an eight-hour day in the 1850s, and a 40-hour week in 1948. The ACTU still includes a 35-hour week with no loss in pay in its platform but, since the large campaign in 1979-82, has done little to raise this demand.
Former ACTU boss and now opposition employment spokesperson Martin Ferguson has raised the idea again, saying, "A significant number of people are working longer and longer hours, and are under more and more stress. Many of these people would like to have more time for other pursuits and are interested in ways of creating jobs for the unemployed."
Bill Kelty is working on a 35-hour week campaign to present to the ACTU congress this year.
But no, the ALP is not taking up the battle in the interests of workers and the unemployed. The ALP plan is for a shorter working week for less pay — like the situation in Tasmania, where teachers can work on 80% pay to get a year off every five years.
The plan is more properly described as job sharing than as a shorter week. Workers sacrifice more, while business gets off scot free. This "solution" ignores that the pressure to work overtime is created by low pay and decreased employee bargaining power.
Over the decade to 1996, the number of full-time workers averaging more than 49 hours per week grew from 9% to 39%. The average working week is now 42.6 hours. The redistribution of all overtime would create 500,000 new jobs.
The number of people working multiple jobs doubled over the last decade. People work more to earn enough to survive.
The ALP, through the Accord, played no small role in dumping the idea of wages being tied to inflation, and allowing businesses to escape having productivity or profit gains flow on to wage rises.
Further cutting the living standards of workers in no way guarantees that business will create new, full-time, permanent jobs.
We are told that shorter working hours for reduced pay will benefit women, who value more flexibility. But, women make up 60% of a growing number of involuntary part-time workers, and "flexibility" is totally in the hands of employers.
Even after the victory of union campaigns for a shorter working week with no loss in pay in Germany and France, employers sought to maximise their capital investment by intensifying the pace of work. Factories were kept going around the clock. Workers now endure irregular hours and days off.
Shorter working hours cannot be separated from wage levels and working conditions. Only one third of overtime is paid, and around 16% of enterprise agreements provide for unpaid overtime or time off in lieu. Employers always seek cheaper labour costs. In general, this means paying workers less to work more, and saving on payments such as superannuation, rather than hiring more workers.
Big business opposes even the watered-down ALP job-sharing plan, because it uses the large pool of unemployed as a weapon against workers demanding better wages and conditions. This was clear to the ALP in government, when it considered such a plan and rejected it. But, "That was then", protests Ferguson.
This cynical move by Labor is a recognition of widespread community concern about worsening unemployment. The plan is less about sharing the work than sharing unemployment. Labor and the ACTU should campaign for a real solution — a shorter working week with no loss in pay.